Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Grants
to the City of Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Parks and Recreation Department
GR-40-02-007
July, 2002
Office of the Inspector General
The Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, has completed an audit of two Universal Hiring Program (UHP) grants awarded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to the city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee Parks and Recreation Department (grantee). The purpose of the grants was to enhance community policing. The grantee was awarded a total of $582,831 to hire eight police officers.1
We reviewed the grantee's compliance with six essential grant conditions and determined that the grantee was generally in compliance with the conditions of: budgeting for officers, source of local matching funds, and community policing activities. However, we found weaknesses in the areas of hiring of officers, retention of officer positions, and reimbursement requests as noted below.2
The grantee's agreement (hereafter referred to as contract) with the Murfreesboro Police Department (MPD) to furnish officers to patrol park facilities did not agree with the terms of the grants.
The grantee could not quantify its pre-grant level of policing services.3 Grantee and MPD officials indicated that the amount of service provided to the parks by the MPD unrelated to the COPS grants was minimal, but the officials were unable to substantiate such verbal assertions with supporting documentation.
We also found that the grantee claimed and received reimbursement for $32,886 in excess of the federal share awarded for the initial UHP grant.
These items are discussed in greater detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. Our audit objectives, scope, and methodology appear in Appendix I.